updates and such

If this is not your first time visiting my rodeo you may have noticed that I spend my time in equal parts half assed copying things I find on the internet and trying to reinvent the wheel.  I never feel the need to precisely follow directions and most of the time I'm pretty sure (though most often wrong) that I already know how to do things just by being near them.  Sometimes the things I make come out really cool in a weird new way.  Sometimes they are a total failure.  Most of the time the things I make are good enough...good enough for family gifts or, in the case of food, good enough to put on the table but I won't be getting a tip.

Sometimes I day dream that I will become good enough at making some thing or things that someone might want to pay for them.  But very often the day dreams end with me reminding myself that five years in school and 10 years as a professional photographer took all the fun out of taking pictures.

So the hell with that.

The last week and a half I have been having a little vacation from one of the little ones.  He and his mom went off to Asia.  I miss him terribly but there has been time for me to catch up on some things I've been thinking about doing.

Remember the post There will be cock ups? I pulled that baby out of the closet of crafty delight and unsewed the mess I made while trying to make the machine do the work.  The thing is just too lumpy bumpy.

So I lined it up the way I thought it should go with the lining starting about two inches below the top edge and I spent an entire evening sewing that sucker in by hand.  Which was surprisingly relaxing.  I think I get how women in the past could sit and sew by hand without going insane it gets mesmirizing after a while. Plus I found that doing it by hand I was able to bully the parts into doing what I wanted them to do much more easily.  

Not the prettiest whipstitch (searched for whipstitch video found these gals instead) ever but unless you are looking this close you really can't see it.  

Then I made a pretty pin.  I decided to use a pin instead of a button so it can be taken off and used for decoration other places.  Fun huh?

I found two hat patterns that worked pretty good. This one which I think needs some adjusting.  I made two and sent one to my friend Sheri cause who doesn't love to get a random hat in the mail?

And This one which I copied out of a how to make hats book I got from the library

 

An old angry birds tshirt got sacrificed.  It's reversible with stripes on the inside.  I drew the shape for the pieces on to newspaper and used that for the pattern.  It's a bit too pointy and it was supposed to fit the big boy but I forgot to calculate in the seam allowance so the little boy gets it.  

I also revisited the Kale chips.  This time I just sprinkled a little salt on them from the salt shaker right before I put them in the oven.  I had to dare my son and his friends to try them but once they did they all said they were good.  Truth be told my kid ate a few, another kid only ate the one I dared him to eat but the third kid chowed the rest of the plate.  I wonder if his mom knows.  

I've been trying out some frugal and/or green cleaning (not necesarily both).  I did take pictures and thought about writing about it but I just couldn't make it interesting even to myself.  If you are interested in how I cleaned my drip pans here are some things I tried.  And just so you know...not one of these methods worked without scrubbing and not one of them got rid of all the gunk even after all the scrubbing.

How to clean drip pans naturally

How to clean a burned pot

How to clean your drip pans

My little vacation is almost over. My plan for the weekend is to try making my own laundry detergent.  

This is what I hope to try wish me luck!